


Things Aren't Always Going To Be Okay

by 8sword



Series: His Fucking Kids [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas, How The Grinch Stole Christmas references, M/M, daddy!dean, stepsisters!Claire and Emma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8sword/pseuds/8sword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean knows the lies they tell themselves to soldier through what hurts. He knows how much more it hurts to finally acknowledge that they were never true. </p><p>(In which the Novak-Winchesters celebrate their first Christmas as a family.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Aren't Always Going To Be Okay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vilupe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vilupe/gifts).



> As usual, this would not have existed without loversforlycanthropes. Her tremendous Claire and Jimmy and Cas and Dean interaction feelings made me desperate to write something addressing the unique roles Claire and Dean provide for one another. This fic in no way does justice to the wondrous and complicated texture of their relationship.
> 
> Special thanks as well to orange_8_hands, musingsdeme, and araftatsea, whose Claire and Emma (and Dean!)(and, okay, Cas) feels excite my own. (And whose e-mails I have neglected responding to in order to write this fic! My apologies!)
> 
> Disclaimer: Views espoused here are not necessarily those of the writer. There are some religion things in here, and religion is something I know very little about, so my apologies in advance for any inaccuracies and offense.

* * *

 

                One of Dean's favorite things about the dining room in their house is how much sunlight comes through the big windows there. There's so much light that they practically never have to use the way-too-fancy chandelier-style light fixture Cas had chosen when they were first rebuilding the place on Bobby's foundations. It means that when one of the light bulbs in said fixture burns out, it's usually a few weeks before they even notice. Unlike, say, the bulb in the bathroom, where the moment it starts dimming, someone notices.

                If Claire and Emma were light bulbs, Emma would be one in the bathroom, and Claire would be one in the dining room.

                "I don't get it," Dean says again. They're sitting in the car, waiting to make a left turn out of the very, _very_ congested parking lot. "Why didn't you tell us your birthday was coming up?"

                Claire looks annoyed. This says a lot, as it takes a lot for anyone who isn't Emma to make Claire so annoyed that she actually lets it show. "Maybe because I'm an adult and I don't need to justify my decisions to you?"

                Dean visibly backpedals for a moment, mouth working soundlessly. Then he compresses his lips, jaw hardening. "Try again, sweetheart. Last I checked, sixteen's not an adult unless you're being tried for murder in Massachusetts."

                "Are you really trying to pull the age card on me?" Claire's voice is scathing, and shit, Dean really doesn't know how to deal with this kid. In all fairness, he has no fucking clue how to deal with Emma, either, but at least when it's Emma, Cas usually comes to the rescue with his Winchester Whisperer magic. With Claire, he has a much more hands-off policy, on account of he's convinced she tolerates him purely for Dean and Emma's sake, which means Dean's on his own.

                He sighs, pulling a hand from the steering wheel to rake it through his hair. "Claire, I don't want to fight about this."

                "Then don't," Claire says. She turns her head to look out the window at the line of cars waiting to pull into The Cheesecake Factory parking lot.

                In the backseat, Cas and Emma are quiet. Dean had relegated Cas to the back seat so Claire could sit shotgun after he found out that she'd decided not to let them all in on the little secret that her birthday was December 26. He'd had to find out from the cashier at JC Penney's, of all people--Claire had insisted on sneaking off to do some of her own shopping and paying for it with her own money from her parents' account. It had been sheer coincidence that Dean had been browsing through the men's section looking for ties for Cas when Claire came to the men's section cashier counter and heard when the cashier, checking Claire's learner's permit against her credit card, said, "Wow, happy almost birthday!"

                Dean had blurted out, "Wait, what?" and nearly knocked over the shelf of ties. The cashier had given him a weirded-out look, but Claire had kept her cool, as usual, rolling her eyes and handing him her permit. Dean had scanned it, forehead creased, and then handed it back to her, feeling tired and empty and like the shittiest parent ever because why  had it never occurred to him to find out when Claire's birthday was?

                No wonder she's pissed at him.

                "Look," Claire says into the tense silence. "My birthday was never a big deal, okay? So I'd like it if we don't make it one. That's all."

                She's still turned toward the window, but it's clear her words are for all of them.

                The silence falls again.

                Then Emma says, "Claire, that means you're a Capricorn."

                Claire eyes her narrowly in the mirror. "So?"

                "So that means you're a _goat_." Emma's tone is gleeful.  She starts making bleating sounds, interspersed every few _baa-aaa_ 's with self-pleased cackles of laughter.

                Claire reaches to the center of the console and presses the button to propel Emma's window down. It exposes her mid- _baaaaa_ to a group of teenage boys waiting to walk across the intersection.

                Emma cuts off, mortified. Claire begins to laugh.

               

\- o -

 

                Claire feels Dean's eyes following her as she heads upstairs when they get home, though he follows Cas and Emma into the kitchen to put away the groceries they bought on the drive back. She's not stupid, and he isn't, either; she knows the playful banter between her and Emma in the car wasn't enough to convince him everything is as okay as he wants it to be.

                And a big part of her is annoyed by that, because suck it up, Dean, things aren't always going to be okay and sometimes you just have to live with that and move on. Okay?

                She doesn't bother changing into her pajamas, just settles down on her bed and starts working through her e-mail inbox, deleting old messages she doesn't need, until the knock comes at her doorjamb.

                She glances up. Dean's in the doorway, hands in his pockets. His coat's gone, his overshirt, too, just his gray Henley left underneath. She's been living with him and Cas nearly six months now, but it still feels weird to see him like this, unlayered and exposed, like every time she looks at him she still expects to see the towering man who had come into her house with a knife and a gun, who'd looked at her with weary pity and not hesitant affection.

                He shuffles his feet. "Hey."

                "Hey."

                "So."

                Claire nearly smiles. "So."

                He motions at the bed. "Can I sit down?"

                Claire draws her legs up under her to make room. Dean settles gingerly on the edge of the bed.

                "I'm... You know I'm really not good at this," he says to his hands, clasped between his knees. "Emma doesn't really get just how shitty a dad I am, but you do."

                Claire's mouth stretches in a smile. It trembles, and there's suddenly heat quivering at the inside of her eyes. She smiles harder. _I know what a shitty dad is_ , comes the thought, but it feels dishonorable even to think it. She knows better than anyone what her father sacrificed for her.

                She clears her throat. "Trust me. You're not a shitty dad."

                Dean looks up. He searches her face. His expression becomes something softer, and he reaches out, closing his hand around her socked toes and squeezing gently. His hands are big and rough from years of weaponry and car parts, the calluses catching on the cotton. Claire used to want hands like her mom's, like her dad's--"pianists' hands," the choir director used to tell their Sunday School class back when her parents played the organ for services, and the boys in Claire's class snickered at how much the word sounded like something else. But now she'd rather have hands like Dean's, hands that show what he's done and where he's been.

                Honest hands.

                Dean squeezes again, then lets go. "So it must suck, having your birthday after Christmas," he says. He's trying to lighten the atmosphere. "You probably always get shortchanged on the presents, right?"

                Claire gives a little half shrug.

                "And the school parties," Dean says. "Man, Sammy's favorite part of the year was when he got to be Birthday Boy all day at school and wear a paper crown and shit. But I guess at least you guys had the Christmas parties with cupcakes and movies before you went home for the break, so it was kinda like a birthday party at school, right?"

                "I wasn't allowed to go to those parties."

                Dean glances over at her.

                "You parents had to sign permission for you to watch the movies the teachers chose," she says. "Mine didn't."

                Dean doesn't ask _why not_? But it's there, in the furrow of his brow, the downward twist of his mouth.

                " _The Grinch_ ," Claire says. "You know the one with Jim Carey? That was the one everyone usually chose. My mom and dad didn't...approve of it."

                _That's not the real spirit of Christmas, Claire_ , she can remember her dad saying earnestly when he and Mom looked at the permission slip. _Other people may have forgotten that it's about Jesus, but you know better. That makes you special._ She can remember saying _but_ and _why not_ and _please_ , and angry tears into her Pocahontas pillow, and the table in the school library where she and Nadya Riyadh sat and did Illinois history worksheets while everyone else stayed in the classroom watching the movie and eating gingerbread cookies that Mrs. Blake brought.

                 She can remember not feeling special at all.

                "It wasn't really that big a deal," she says. "But back then--it felt like one, you know?"

                Dean knows. He knows, and he knows, listening to Claire, how it feels to resent a dad who's dead. A dad who's dead because he died _for_ you. To feel like the worst kind of shit for it, and to be unable to stop doing it anyway.

                He looks at her, so strong and capable in her jeans and winter boots and her marching band jacket, and in his mind's eye is a much smaller girl, the little blonde kid he'd met all those years ago when everything was going to shit, sitting at a table wondering why she couldn't belong with everyone else. There's little consolation in being told you're different because you're special, because you know things other people don't know--Dean knows that. He has memories of half a dozen Christmases spent sitting up with a gun hard under his pillow and his brother asleep in the next bed to know that. Memories of watching the long red minutes between one a.m. and four a.m. tick past on the digital clock between the beds, so slowly, so slowly, like whatever magic stretched the night to let Santa visit every house in the world had ballooned out to envelop Dean in its magic, too.

                Like he was special.

                Claire shifts. Puts her feet on the floor, toes off her boots. She sits there for a moment, hair hanging forward and hands gripping her comforter. Then she pushes forward and goes to her dresser, pulling out her pajamas.

                It's a clear _I don't want to talk anymore._ Dean pushes up from the bed, too, and hesitates in the doorway.

                "Claire," he says.

                She looks at him.

                "It was," he says. "It was a big deal. Okay?"

                Claire looks back down at her open drawer. She nods.

                Dean hesitates. But if Claire wanted him to stay, she'd tell him, so he closes her door quietly behind him.

               

\- o -

 

                That night, he wakes to fingers plucking at his t-shirt sleeve. He's wide awake immediately, hand shooting under his pillow for the gun there. But it's only Claire, leaning uncertainly over him.

                "Sorry," she whispers.

                He releases the gun, pulls his hand out to swipe it down his eyes. "Claire," he says hoarsely. "What is it?"

                Her eyes are wide in the darkness. Cas always leaves the blinds open a tiny bit, enough for moonlight to seep into the room when there's not too many clouds. "I wanted to ask you something."

                Dean doesn't push up on his elbows to look at the digital clock on Cas's nightstand. He just blinks and clears his throat, trying to wake himself up. "Anything."

                "If I go to church, will you come with me?"

                A moment passes before the question sinks completely in. Dean stares stupidly at Claire, and she stares back, until he realizes that yes, that was really what she asked. "Sure," he says. "Sure, Claire, of course, but--"

                He stops himself. Doesn't ask, _Are you sure you wouldn't rather go with Cas?_

                "Thanks," Claire says. Her voice is guilty and ashamed. "Thanks, Dean."

                "Hey," he says, and stumbles out of bed. "No problem, kiddo. C'mere, let's get you back to sleep."

                Not even entirely aware of what he's doing, he wraps his arm around her shoulders and walks her down the hallway, back to her room. Sits on the edge of her bed as she climbs back under the covers, stands up to pull them to her chin the way he did for Emma just a few days ago.

                "Thanks," she whispers again.

                "Any time, kiddo," he says. He smoothes back her hair before he leaves.

                Cas rolls over when Dean crawls back into bed. He doesn't say anything, just slides his hand up Dean's arm.

                "She's okay," Dean says. "Just needed to ask me something."

                Cas curls closer. Dean burrows into him, pressing his cold feet between Cas's warm ones, and tries not to think.

 

\- o -

 

                They go on Christmas Eve, to the noon service while Cas and Emma are gone to pick Sam and Amelia up from the airport. Claire wears black dress pants and a blouse Amelia bought for Emma. Dean wears a collared blue shirt and khakis he hasn't worn since back when he lived with Lisa, and he's scrubbed cleaner than he's been since coming back from Purgatory, when he spent hours in the shower desperate to be _clean_. Walking through the antechamber of the church with Claire, accepting nods and handshakes from the people in robes holding open the doors and the other neatly dressed people filtering through them, he feels like more of an imposter than he ever did in his FBI suits.

                Claire, by contrast, moves with grace and assurance, slipping easily through the crowd like water, through the doors into the big, dimly lit room with its rows and rows of pews and soft strains of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear." He wonders if this is like coming home for her, the way sliding into his baby is for him; wonders as she slides into a pew near the back of the room if this was the same area where she and Jimmy and Amelia usually sat, or if she's sitting in the back because of Dean, to keep him and his cluelessness out of sight. He's never been in a church to worship before, just to interview or to steal or to exorcise, and he feels uneasy, like the pious people here will be able to smell that on him, like they can sense he doesn't belong.

                Claire touches his hand. He starts, looking down, and sees her eyebrow cocked expectantly. He sits, clumsy, ears burning.

                They sit in silence as people filter into the pews before and behind them, and then beside them. They get a few curious looks, but most of them come with kind smiles, a few with "Welcome" or "Merry Christmas." By the time the minister comes up to the front, Dean's knee isn't bouncing nervously anymore, and he's stopped compulsively thumbing the edge of the hymn book Claire put in his lap.

                She doesn't have hers open, and neither do most of the people around them. Dean figures out why, when the minister prompts them to stand up and begins to sing; everyone seems to know the words by heart. Claire doesn't sing, but she turns Dean's book to the page with the lyrics, and he looks down at it, forming the words with his mouth as everyone sings around them. These are words that Claire sang, that Jimmy sang, and Amelia, and it means something, somehow, to read them while thinking of them, of what they gave and what they lost.

                He looks at Claire. Her eyes are distant, her hands curled at her sides, and she holds her chin high and straight when the song ends and the minister bids them sit down.

                Dean wipes his hands down his khakis.

                It's a Christmas sermon, or mass, or whatever, and so of course the topic's Christ. Mary and Joseph and the three Wise Men: Dean listens more intently than he might have otherwise, trying to keep himself from looking over at Claire while the minister speaks, because it doesn't feel right to look at her right now, to watch the expressions on her face in this private moment she was so reluctant to ask him for.

                But when the talk turns to Christ and His sacrifice, how He gave himself, Claire's cold fingers wriggle into Dean's sleeve. They hook under his cuff, through the buttonholes, and when he looks over at Claire, she's pale. Her lip is white beneath her teeth, and she's holding onto his sleeve so hard her knuckles are turning white, too.

                He stands immediately. "Sorry," he says, and then, "Sorry, excuse us," and "Sorry, I'm really sorry," as he stumbles around the knees of the people sitting in the pews, Claire holding fast to him the whole time.

                The anteroom where they'd been before is still chilly with the air from the open doors, an abrupt and welcome relief from the close heat inside the church. Claire doesn't stop there; she lets go of Dean and strides right out the outer doors, out into the parking lot. Dean grabs their coats from where they left them and follows her, tugging some balled-up Kleenex out of his pocket.

                "You okay?"

                Claire nods. She's got her arms crossed, hands tucked into her armpits. He holds out her coat, but she shakes her head. Sits down, hard, on the curb.

                Dean crouches next to her. He puts a hand on her back.

                "Hey," he says gently after a few minutes. He drapes her coat over her shoulders. "How about we go home?"

                Claire shivers into her jacket. Then she nods.

 

\- o -

 

                At home, there's buttery lamplight in the windows and smoke curling from the chimney and Benny chopping fire wood in the side yard without a shirt on and Dean getting out of the car telling him to put a shirt on, Twilight, what if somebody sees you?

                There's Sam in the living room trying to figure out how to hook up his iPod to the speaker system, and Amelia in the kitchen unpacking a bag of groceries and Cas coming down the stairs telling Claire that Sam and Amelia's luggage is upstairs and she and Emma will have to discuss who will be giving up their room for their guests to stay in and he suggests deciding it with a game of rock, paper, scissors because Emma takes after Dean when it comes to using the same move every time.

                There's Emma standing in front of the linen closet trying to balance a stack of sheets and blankets in her arms and giving a shout when she sees Claire coming up the stairs.

                "I made an executive decision since you were gone," she informs her, closing the closet with her foot and tipping half the stack into Claire's arms. "I get to keep my room and Samelia gets yours."

                "Okay," Claire says, and tips the bedding back into Emma's arms. She walks into Emma's room and drops onto the bed. Emma's pillow smells like peanut butter.

                The sound of Emma's footsteps enter the room a few minutes later, accompanied by an indignant huff. The pillow is tugged out from under Claire's face and dropped on top of her head instead.

                "Ow," Claire mumbles.

                Emma drops onto the bed with a bounce. "Where'd you go with Dean? He was wearing cologne, I could smell it."

                Claire doesn't move. Emma pokes the pillow. "Did you do last-minute shopping? Cas still wants a Rumba."

                "We were getting you a pony," Claire mumbles.

                Emma punches her butt.

                "Ow."

                After a minute, Emma says, "You coulda told me about your birthday, you know."

                Claire says, "I know."

                Emma rolls over until her back is pressed against Claire's side. She waits a beat, then--

                " _Baaa-aaa_."

                Claire shoves her off the bed.

               

\- o -

 

                Downstairs, there's Benny's pie and Amelia's casserole and Dean's burger balls and the bit of wine that Sam lets them each have a taste of. (Well--lets Claire have a taste of. She's pretty sure Dean switches Emma's with sparkling grape juice when Emma's distracted listening to Benny's story of his first tattoo.)

                There's _It's A Wonderful Life_ on TV and jokes about Clarence and popcorn made fresh in the skillet and summer sausage and cheese cubes and the zombie-themed gingerbread cookies Emma made with Dean yesterday despite Cas's attempts to kick them out of the kitchen. There's laughter and making fun of Sam's new haircut and losing to Benny and Cas at Monopoly and watching _Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer_ because it's Amelia's favorite and she brought her deluxe DVD copy.

                And afterward, when everyone's asleep or half asleep and shuffling upstairs, yawning, Claire's coming blearily awake when someone shakes her shoulder gently. She blinks up at Dean, his eyes flecked red and green and blue from the LED lights glowing through the windows. "What?"

                He's putting something in her hand. It's the remote, she realizes, and when he pulls back, tucking their fuzzy spare quilt around her, she sees the TV screen.

  

 

                "There's a second disc if you want it," Dean says. "Special features, and it's got the cartoon version on it."

                Claire looks up at him. Dimly, she's aware of the movie starting, of a shoulder under her foot that probably belongs to Emma, of the smell of burnt popcorn still lingering in the air. But mostly there's Dean's eyes, and his warm hand on her head,  and a tight, taut feeling like smiling and like crying.

                She pauses the movie and grabs Dean's sleeve. He looks down at it. Then he steps over Emma where she's sprawled asleep on the carpet, and settles in on the other side of the couch. Claire kicks some of the quilt onto him, and shifts so that he can have one of the pillows.

                Then she presses Play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
